THE AUTOMAT BY EDWARD HOPPER’S

We don’t know if the title refers to a place or a machine-like creature or even if the
protagonist is the automat. The most obvious interpretation is that the coffee place is the
automat and she is having a coffee there.

An automat is like a robot, maybe the author is referring to this cafeteria as an automat, given
that is a place where you get your food and leave. It is important also to know that in 1912 it
was set up the first service food company that operated with automats.

PROTAGONIST: The protagonist is Jo, painter’s wife. She is alone. She is wearing her hat and a
coat so we don’t know if she is in a rush or not spending much time there or maybe it is very
cold in that place.

It is said that the author tries to portray the loneliness and coldness of big cities. Big cities are
places where there is lack of communication, like for example the automat, where there isn’t
any waiter or employee you could talk to. The painting is a metaphor for life in the big cities. It
is a pictorial metaphor for the lifestyle in America. This was characterized by loneliness,
isolation and lack of communication. If you travel for example to New York, there are bars full
of people but they don’t talk to each other. In Hopper’s paintings, his protagonists are
normally alone, there are no people around them. In that way, the author emphasizes the
loneliness of big cities.

BODY LANGUAGE: her legs adopt a strange position; her knees are pressed against each other.
The bowl on the window is there to call the attention of passengers. The message is that this
place is giving them fresh fruit. Also, it is interesting to see that the colors of the fruits are
duplicated in the face and hat of the woman. There is a parallelism, the fruit that is shown but
nobody is going to eat it and the woman, who is condemned to sterility.

WINDOW: We can’t see anything through the window; the implicated meaning is that it is a
world without any wat out.

HOTEL BY RAILROAD (1942)

HOTEL: A hotel implies people going from one place to another. Something that is not
permanent. The hotel is a metaphor that stands for American lifestyle. American people don’t
stay in a place forever. Families tended to distribute around all the nation. There is movement
constantly. Everything changes.

PROTAGONISTS: The protagonists look like a married couple. We can see that there is lack of
communication between both of them. They are doing different thinks: the woman reads a
book and the man is smoking and looking through the window. Behind the window there is a
dead wall, so the man is not looking at anything. In addition, the mirror does not reflect
anything. The message is that there are no family ties. Instead, there is movement and
changes. and Life without meaning.

“NIGHTAWKS” (1942)

SETTING: The setting of this painting is New York. This place is imaginary. Everything is missing
in New York. There are no people.

TITLE: A nighthawk is a person that likes to stay up late at night. Maybe, the protagonists of
the painting are nighthawks. The place s eems to be made of glass and we can’t see the
entrance or the exist of the place. This has a metaphorical meaning: there is no communication
between these people. The woman and the man are sat together, however there is lack of
communication between them.

It is a very realistic painting, the coffee machines, cups and cigarettes are very detailed